CHEYENNE – A team of students from Laramie High School won the state Wyoming High School Mock Trial competition and qualified for the National High School Mock Trial tournament in May in Little Rock, Ark.
Cheyenne's Central High School finished second, a second team from Laramie HS finished third, and Cheyenne East High School finished in fourth place.
The competition was held Dec. 3 in the district courtrooms in Cheyenne, with the aid of 15 Cheyenne attorneys who scored the “trials” and five members of the Wyoming bench who presided in the case of State vs. Madison, the WHSMT case for 2022. The case and rules can be found on the WHSMT website, wyomocktrial.com.
In the competition, teams prepared both the plaintiff and defense sides of the case and faced each other in a series of trials, performing the roles of attorneys and witnesses. The “facts” arose from the murder of a shady character whose remains were found in an old fuel tank at the abandoned Jackalope Truck Stop. The teams had to master a challenging circumstantial case of motive, means and opportunity but without definitive forensic evidence and complicated by evidentiary issues involving spousal privileges.
WHSMT is an independent program, supported by a grant from the Wyoming State Bar, team registrations and donations. State coordinators are Marguerite Herman and George Powers, who also write the original cases for Wyoming students. The program is open to any high school, which can include eighth graders as an option, and the state competition typically is in Cheyenne and held the weekend after Thanksgiving.
